Under the weather

We went to the doctor's yesterday. I've got the hacking cough from hell, the kids have all been running fevers and my parents called to say they were keeping their distance because they have bronchitis and are laid up in bed. Funny, my parents saying they went to the doctor was what got me thinking that maybe we needed to go.

Don't get me wrong, if the girls have a fever that won't come down or some other weird symptom like being quiet or lethargic, then we're heading off to the clinic. But if it's a sniffle with a cough, then it's a cold and we'll wait it out. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and quacks like a duck- it's probably not Ebola.

My motivation was kicked into high gear when I was trying to get an appointment and baby Jordan was fussing a bit to get at the computer. When I put her down to stand between my legs she laid herself down on the floor and put her thumb in her mouth. She just laid there on the hardwood. She never just lays there.

The girls were great at the doctor, even during the unpleasant baby-chest-xray portion, and were tolerant of my limited selection of snacks and lack of foresight to bring more than one coloring book. Neither Grace or Eleanor were thrilled with my solution of pulling pages out of the coloring book so that they could both draw at the same time, but the compromise seemed to work for the moment. At the end of the day, it turned out that I've got a nasty viral infections that earned me cough syrup with codeine, uber ibuprofen and some other drug that I can't spell. Grace and Jordan both have an antibiotic to kill of their cooties and the baby has another drug to take care of the croupy cough. Fun, fun, fun for all.

The funny part was when the doctor told me I'm probably more than half way through and it should get easier from here. All I would need would be the meds, drink plenty of liquid and get some rest. I just smiled. Did he not notice the three kids?

So today we went to school. Or tried to. Grace was convincingly upset about having to go to school so she came home with me and crashed on the couch while I tried to get some work done in the library. Nothing of any real worth, just fussing with what was already there to make it look good. I pulled out some old photos and the very few knickknacks that we have to put them on the shelves. It's starting to look even better than I imagined. Now all we have to do is get the bedroom cleaned out before Beth's parents come this weekend. I'm sure we'll get that done in our free time.